Mayor's funding pledge for council homes

By Natalie Vincent - Wed 7 November 2018, 2:04 pm

A £25 million grant for Barking and Dagenham Council will help it support new housebuilding over the next four years.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan distributed £1 billion of funding to 26 of the 32 London boroughs to build more than 11,000 new homes at social rent levels by 2022. Barking and Dagenham will use its £25,338,000 to help build 565 new properties across the borough, starting in 2019.

With London facing a long-term housing shortage and the supply of council homes halved since 1980 to just under 18,000, around 250 properties are lost to Right to Buy every year.

Cameron Geddes, cabinet member for social housing and regeneration, said: "We welcome any additional funding for new council housebuilding and hope it will help address the huge demand for genuinely affordable homes across the borough.

"We have a number of new developments planned over the next few years that will help our residents who struggle with soaring private rents and insecure tenancies."